I never thought much about pen names. I’d read a book and at the end I’d be surprised the author’s name was a pseudonym for another author that I enjoyed reading. Sometimes, I’d notice that an author would use one name for historical romance, one for sci-fi, one for contemporary works. Okay, it’s genre related. Pretty cool.

End of story. Until this weekend…

Let me give you some back story. I chose my pen name for several reasons. One, it’s different from my real name. (DUH!!!) No, I mean really different, because in my previous life, I wrote curriculum and educational material for teachers and students. I’m envisioning the parental outcry as they address the Board of Education:

“It’s pornography, sir, plain and simple. She uses that word in her writing.”

“What do you want us to do, Mrs. Smith?”

“Burn the witch! Burn the witch!”

Well, it wouldn’t be that bad, but I’d like to keep parents focused on the important stuff, like their child getting a quality education.

So the pseudonym I chose honors my two kids: Katie and Stephen. Hence, Katie Stephens. Voila!

Fast forward to this weekend. You’ve all seen the entries I’ve posted about the romance anthology. As we’re getting it on sites for pre-orders, I get this frantic Facebook message from Valerie:

“There’s another author named Katie Stephens. I need a middle initial!”

Umm, I don’t have a middle initial. It’s a pseudonym.

Once I stopped laughing, I told her to add the initial ‘I.’ Something about having my initials read “KIS(s) my ass” tickled me. But I really don’t like the way it looks. Katie I Stephens. Meh. It might as well say Katie ME Stephens, yeah? But it’s only for the All Romance site, I believe.

Then I got to thinking. How about a complete change to KI Stephens? I’d still have the KIS going for me. I like the look of it.

Katie has that young, fresh, naive connotation, right? Would you read pornography by Katie? Would I write it? With KI, I could do anything, be anything, write anything!! I’d be free, free, free!

Love Least Expected is alive and well and living on Amazon in pre-order status. Woohoo!!! Our team is working hard to get it up on other sites, such as All Romance, Kobi, Barnes & Noble, and others. I’ll put up a complete list soon.

Enjoy anthologies? Love romance? Then you need to be following Love Least Expected on Facebook! The page is starting to heat up with all kinds of stuff: pre-order information, launch parties, giveaways, blurbs, and previews! Check out the author list for someone you might know and push a like or two. We’d love to see you.

Today is a very important day in the life of my blog! Aren’t you excited?

Yesterday, a very dear friend of mine and co-author on the Romance Anthology (more on that in the next post), Michaela Miles, discovered I didn’t have an author page on Facebook, so she proceeded to help me put one up. I’ve received 38 likes so far, and … isn’t that wonderful? The best part: I’m learning new things all the time and only being the least little bit intimidated. Okay, that’s a lie. I’m REALLY intimidated.

I’m so intimidated that I immediately PM’d my friend and fellow author Scott Bell and told him he had to put up an author page on Facebook. I copied and sent him Michaela’s instructions. Nice of me, right? I figured if I went down in a blaze of pffft, I could take Scott with me. I’m really good with sharing.

So, today’s task is to link this blog to my Facebook page.

THIS IS A TEST. THIS IS ONLY A TEST. IF THIS TEST DOESN’T WORK, PLEASE GO TO MY FACEBOOK PAGE AND TELL ME.